Analyses of God beliefs, atheism, religion, faith, miracles, evidence for religious claims, evil and God, arguments for and against God, atheism, agnosticism, the role of religion in society, and related issues.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

In his book, Breaking the Spell, Daniel Dennett makes an important distinction. When we inquire whether someone believes in God, the answer we get often doesn’t distinguish between people who believe in God and people who believe in believing in God. That is, many people who say "yes" to the question may only be acknowledging that they think that believing is a good thing. They maybe just be stating their intention to believe, or expressing their general approval for believing. Or they could simply be answering the way that they know is most highly approved of and they may feel the social, economic, and familial pressures towards believing. There is not a comparable set of influences inflating the numbers of people who will report that they do not believe. So the result is that polls that tell the percentages of the population who believe in God on the basis of these self-reports will give much higher numbers of believers than there really are.

Testing for and distinguishing between belief versus belief in belief is very tricky business however. Now Dennett and Linda LaScola, a clinical social worker, have done something quite remarkable on the topic, and possibly for the first time in Preachers Who Are Not Believers

Through private channels they have found a number of practicing clergy in American Christian churches who do not believe in God. And they have compiled several extensive interviews with them about the curious lives they are living. These are preachers and ministers who give sermons,sing God's praises, lead prayers, counsel, and advice all within the Christian community, but they are, for all intents and purposes, atheists.

Dennett and LaScola have gotten then to talk openly about how they came to doubt their convictions, what their lives are like, what their futures hold, their relationships with their families and other believers, and what it’s like to be “in the closet.”

The stories are just amazing. And the revelations are telling. All of them have found ways to deal with the cognitive dissonance.

“Here’s how I’m handling my job on Sunday mornings: I see it as play acting. I kind of see myself as taking on a role of a believer in a worship service, and performing. Because I know what to say. I know how to pray publicly. I can lead singing. I love singing. I don’t believe what I’m saying anymore in some of these songs. But I see it as taking on the role and performing. Maybe that’s what it takes for me to get myself through this, but that’s what I’m doing.”

It is also evident that the comfort and security of an ecumenical job has a lot to do with their staying with the church.

"So maybe there’ll be a divorce between myself and the Presbyterian Church. I need to feel fulfilled, and I need to provide for myself and my family. I can go back and get new education and training, but I’ve got to do something."

“I’m where I am because I need the job still. If I had an alternative, a comfortable paying job, something I was interested in doing, and a move that wouldn’t destroy my family, that’s where I’d go. Because I do feel kind of hypocritical.

“If somebody said, ‘Here’s $200,000,’ I’d be turning my notice in this week, saying, ‘A month from now is my last Sunday.’ Because then I can pay off everything.”

And all of them cite the difficulties with reconciling what the Bible really says with what they learned in Sunday school. Actually sitting down and reading the Bible carefully and looking at the textual criticism literature generated a crisis of faith for all of them. You can't actually believe that Adam and Eve were the first humans, or that a guy lived in the belly of a whale, or that Jesus was born from a virgin. They also acknowledge the profound problems with literal interpretations or putting too much stock in anything in the Bible states given its convoluted history.

“Well, I think most Christians have to be in a state of denial to read the Bible and believe it. Because there are so many contradicting stories. You’re encouraged to be violent on one page, and you’re encouraged to give sacrificial love on another page. You’re encouraged to bash a baby’s head on one page, and there’s other pages that say, you know, give your brother your fair share of everything you have if they ask for it.”

All of the respondents report that doubts like their own are widespread among others in their trade. But there is an unwritten code of silence, a secret that each one acquires individually, and each one knows that the others know it, but no one dare acknowledge it publicly.

The confessions here give us some new insights into some of the most mystifying behaviors of the clergy that unbelievers have observed with incredulity. We can’t fathom how smart, educated, thoughtful people can possibly believe the things that they seem to earnestly report believing. We grow frustrated with the endless convoluted rationalizations, evasions, and logical gymnastics. And we shake our heads because we just can’t see how they can really mean what they are saying. The simple answer is that they don’t. What several of the subjects acknowledge is the legitimacy and seriousness of the challenges and arguments that atheists have been raising against the received views within their sects. For some of them, the atheistic arguments worked to change their views about God. Scientific claims cannot be reconciled with religious doctrine; God cannot be an anthropomorphic, personal being. We don’t have sufficient evidence to prove a virgin birth or a resurrection. Pointless suffering cannot be reconciled with a loving creator. God doesn't fulfill some necessary explanatory function in the world, and so on.

They are, as many non-believers have long suspected, systematic and pathological liars. Admittedly, they think that they can continue to preach, sing, pray, and counsel towards some greater, positive, humanitarian goals. But the simple fact is that in order to continue doing what they see as good work, they must flatly lie to people who trust them, and who do not have the benefit of their education to know better. They exploit the ignorance and fears of the masses. And they leverage their extensive training in apologetics, and psychology to manipulate their congregations into believing things that they acknowledge are false.

Even worse, they continue to implant outrageous and false stories into the heads of children where they will take hold and create a new lifelong struggle to reconcile deep-seated and emotional convictions from childhood with reality they discover as adults. Ironically, despite the staggering conflict and anguish in their own minds, they persist in propagating the delusions that will duplicate them in the minds of thousands of others. They hide their struggles in order to infect others with it.

If they weren't responsible for such a harmful misrepresentation, their stories would be more heartbreaking. They have been trapped in a prison where they cannot say any of this publicly. They will lose their jobs, their support networks, and their families. And they have been made to suffer tremendous psychological tensions in order to keep up appearances while sealing off their doubts.

What their examples should make us reflect on is how to change the culture so that the clergy who are the primary broadcasters of the mythology can be liberated from it more easily if and when they put 2 and 2 together. We can only hope that this groundbreaking study by Dennett and LaScola opens the door a bit for more of the clergy to come out of the closet.

These examples also suggest several specific ways we can help them. Many of us in the non-believer community (myself included) are naively inclined to take believers at their word when they offer arguments for God's existence or justifications for believing. But these examples should remind us that many of so-called believers, even the important among them actually don't even buy all the nonsense themselves. They say what they are supposed to say, but it would appear that they are trying to convince themselves as much or more than they are trying to convince us. We must remember that the best response to the broken arguments may be, "I don't think you actually believe that. And I know that you've felt the force of the doubts against God that I am raising." What they need to see is that it would be worse to sustain the lie than to come out and clear their minds and conscience of the bad faith their peculiar situation has created.

“I didn’t plan to become an atheist. I didn’t even want to become an atheist. It’s just that I had no choice. If I’m being honest with myself. . . . I want to understand Christianity, and that’s what I’ve tried to do. And I’ve wanted to be a Christian. I’ve tried to be a Christian, and all the ways they say to do it. It just didn’t add up.”

“The love stuff is good. And you can still believe in that, and live a life like that. But the whole grand scheme of Christianity, for me, is just a bunch of bunk.”

21 comments:

That is a really heartbreaking study to read. Especially in the context of the having nowhere else to go, or feeling "stuck" in their given vocation.

Do you think this will encourage more clergy to "come out" as it were? I'm really skeptical of that because of the financial implications, and the potential social ostracization. It seems to me that the people in this article had to have some serious encouragement to do so.

Were there any numbers that went with the study? Perhaps an anonymously poll of the clergy in this country?

The implications of a person purposely teaching bad information are huge. I'm having a hard time with the idea that they're purposely lying. It's certainly not malicious. Ethical? I don't think so. Moral? I don't know. I can't imagine their struggle within. That seems to be the darkest aspect of this whole thing. I suppose the best thing to do is to encourage people to be honest with themselves. Change can be very frigntening, but they need to know there are people out there just like them.

(I resisted the urge to type in all capitals, -'cause then I'd be right and you'd be wrong and there'd be no discussion) ;)

I'm pretty convinced that the way to break the cycle and hence the grip on consciousness that the religious delusion has, is to do what we can to cut off the inordinate influence it has on kids. I think giving kids a broad based education about the fundamentals of all world religions, like Dennett advocates, is the best way to inoculate them. That will help them see through the efforts by preachers to establish their doctrines as the exclusive picture of reality. If they know about all the other religions, they'll take mom and dad's less seriously.

The way to lessen the hold that religion has on our minds suggested by this set of interviews is to help the clergy liberate themselves from a social institution that has trapped them. Religion thrives on ignorance. Educate everyone and it withers.

Along that same line, teaching some sort of "critical thinking" well before the college level could seriously help. The idea of a child growing up not learning early how do weigh information and ideas is pretty sickening.

I don't ever recall in elementary school or high school being taught "how" to think. Unfortunately, by the time someone reaches 18, 19, or 20 years of age, it's far too late in some cases.

Yes, lets have Daniel Dennet decide what is best for our children. He is such a beacon of moral virtue....

In the debate between him and Plantinga Dennet acted like a total asshole. This comes even from his supporters at that lecture.

But hey why not? Atheism is a great moral philosophy. Just like at the church of Satan who claim themselves to be atheists/ Good stuff!

"LaVeyan Satanism is a religion founded in 1966 by Anton Szandor LaVey. Its teachings are based on individualism, self-indulgence, and "eye for an eye" morality. Unlike Theistic Satanists, LaVeyan Satanists are atheists and agnostics who regard Satan as a symbol of man's inherent nature"

My logic's as good as yours, I think. Aren't you the one equating all atheists with Anton LaVey? Come on. Show me where Dennett's moral philosophy follows LaVey's. You accuse him of acting like a "total asshole" and you come here doing the same thing!

I don't suppose it will induce any more constructive comments from our angry anonymous friend, but Satan is yet another supernatural being that I don't see any compelling existence for.

Anon, personal attacks and angry non-sequiturs are easy. The difficult response is to try understand the argument being made and actually offer some reasons for doubting the reasoning behind it. Can you do that? Or maybe there's an adult home with you who we could talk to?

No mikey not all athiest are satanist but all LaVey satanist are atheists. Better reading next time.

Matt mcormick,

You never respond to anybodys post honestly except your own groupies.

DM has a point, anon 1, 2, 3 ad infinitum have a point. But NOOO you just attack them for not understanding the issue, which seems to be what someone would do if they are in a jam and cannot rebuttal...

Fair enough this is your house but maybe just maybe you should try and understand Paul or fred or any other person that disagrees with you.

Despite his scattered non sequiturs, anon. has a point that didn't come out in the post. Finding a bunch of priests and preachers who confess to not believing in God doesn't show that there is no God, of course. I wasn't pretending otherwise, nor is Dennett. They are what they are: some preachers who have come to doubt what they preach. It may turn out that they are all proven wrong in the end and that God exists, and is really pissed with them, I suppose.

What I thought was so compelling and fascinating about the study is the candid and intimate view into the minds of some people who will consistent report in public that they believe in God. From the outside, you'd never know that they don't believe. They give all the common arguments, they say they believe, they act like they believe, they give all the right responses that a believer would give. The surprise is that they don't believe.

And these examples make a strong suggestion about how many more of them are out there. For every one like this that Dennett and La Scola found, there must be a hundred or a thousand more who would not confess their real feelings. And that means that when we are having these discussions, it is a real possibility that the person who is pressing the case for God actually doesn't believe at all.

So how about you, anon? Do you actually believe what you say you believe, or do you just believe in belief? One easy, and cheap psychological shot would be for me to say that all of these raging tantrums, the name calling, and the erratic accusations suggest that this posting actually struck a nerve and all your protesting is a better indicator that you actually have your doubts about God and you can't face having that exposed.

"Atheism is a great moral philosophy. Just like at the church of Satan who claim themselves to be atheists/ Good stuff!"

This is your latest response:

"No mikey not all athiest are satanist but all LaVey satanist are atheists. Better reading next time."

But this is a distinct change of direction. You equated atheists with LaVey satanists. Now you'd have me think that, no, all along you meant only that LaVey satanists are atheists. (Which, would be interesting, but hardly germane.) You did not. You did not because your goal was to paint the morality of Dennett with the same brush as that of LaVey; to suggest that because both are "atheists," that somehow magically puts them both in the same moral boat. And yet, in ignoring my challenge to demonstrate that Dennet's morality agrees with LaVey's you as much as concede you can't do it. So, why the slander?

No, I read you right. If you want to be read differently, say something different.

Don't get me wrong. I don't believe in Jesus any more than I believe in Joseph Smith or Haile Selassie. But if we resent being told that we really do believe in god, why should they not resent being told they really don't believe in God? For some statistical percentage this will be true, but using it indiscriminately is stooping to their level of argument.

Oh Mikey you dont read well. If you followed the discussion you would know that LaVey satanist are atheist. So "LaVey and his pals" refers to the atheist satanist. Reading from this that ALL satanist are atheist i have no idea had you did this.

I am not partial to generalizations or people who infer them incorrectly from poor reading

Hi MM I certainly believe in beliefs so I can have them. I am sure you do too so you can drink merry with your star trek pals and tell them why your belief in non god is special and perhaps….SEXY

But I am sure there are atheist that struggle to defend their position. Some of your disciples here are poorly trained in philosophy and first order logic and don’t know the difference between an implicit and explicit contradiction or derive generalizations from a post meant to ridicule.

And yes I like to play wit da atheist who cannot back his position juts you like you do with the church going numb nut who never considered that green cheese may be behind their chalk board. Sure MM you are hardcore at defining the atheist position but your follows not so much. Their easy prey and if I was a man that looked like Santa Claus I may make a ridicule argument that their poor defense of non god shows that that their position is weak. But then again I may not do this.

"Yes, lets have Daniel Dennet decide what is best for our children. He is such a beacon of moral virtue.... "

Erm, it wasn't suggested that we should let Daniel Dennett decide what is best for our children, but that we should educate our children about world religions, as Dennett advocates.

"In the debate between him and Plantinga Dennet acted like a total asshole. This comes even from his supporters at that lecture."

Does the fact that Dennett was at some point rude mean that we shouldn't listen to his suggestions on education? And besides, if Dennett did act like an asshole (A slight overreaction perhaps?), does that preclude Dennett being a moral beacon forever, let alone a fallible human being that can nonetheless have some good suggestions?

"But hey why not? Atheism is a great moral philosophy. Just like at the church of Satan who claim themselves to be atheists/ Good stuff!"

I don't think that anyone is saying we should teach children the values of Satanism. Of course, we could well teach children about Satanism, along with all other religious points of view. The point of education is to learn, not to be moralized to. Children should be able to make up their own minds about morality, just as they should with regards to religion.

"Daniel dennet is trying to make an argument that is derived from ridicule. That is that theist lie to themselves because they struggle to defend themselves...

ALERT ALERT this is a RED HERRING as a person who is uncomfortable with themselves can still be right! And this psychological state has NOTHING to do with theist beign right or that God exists!!!"

I don't think that Dennett argues that theism or religious belief can be explained psychologically, therefore theism is false (Though if I am incorrect, feel free to show me just where he gives this argument). Rather, Dennett is arguing that if God doesn't exist, belief in God can nonetheless be explained, and so belief in God isn't positive evidence for God's existence.

"Yeah so Mr. Dennet is just mad because Santa Claus is more real than him and has more friends..."

Perhaps, but that doesn't make his denial of Santa Claus false :)

"Dennet thinks he is a psychologist even though he has never formally studied psychology.

Just another philosopher that has over stepped the bounds of their field of study - Green cheeze behind chalk boards or counting real verse imaginary sheep.

Thus Mr. dennet has no credibility whatsoever to make a clinical assessment of theist's emotional states."

Again, can you give an example where Dennett actually reports the belief that he is a psychologist? Probably not, since he admits that he is an "autodidact" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett#Career_in_academia).

Nonetheless, Dennett is a co-director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts. But this is beside the point: criticize the arguments, rather than the man. If you don't think that Dennett makes bad arguments for his views, or is incorrect about something, go ahead and say what.

"Don't get me wrong. I don't believe in Jesus any more than I believe in Joseph Smith or Haile Selassie. But if we resent being told that we really do believe in god, why should they not resent being told they really don't believe in God? For some statistical percentage this will be true, but using it indiscriminately is stooping to their level of argument."

The fact that theists resent being told that they don't really believe doesn't make it false. The same is true of atheism. We should follow the evidence, rather than worry about upsetting people: what's the evidence that atheists aren't really atheists, or that theists aren't really theists?

If the evidence shows that either atheists or theists don't implicitly accept their explicit convictions, then so be it.

My book is out:

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Atheism

Author:

Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Rochester. Teaching at CSUS since 1996. My main area of research and publication now is atheism and philosophy of religion. I am also interested in philosophy of mind, epistemology, and rational decision theory/critical thinking.

Quotes:

"Science. It works, bitches."

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever until the end of time. But he loves you! He loves you and he needs money!"George Carlin 1937 - 2008

Many Paths, No God.

I don't go to church, I AM a church, for fuck's sake. I'm MINISTRY. --Al Jourgensen

Every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out, “It is a matter of faith, and above reason.”- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

If life evolved, then there isn't anything left for God to do.

The universe is not fine-tuned for humanity. Humanity is fine-tuned to the universe. Victor Stenger

Skeptical theists choose to ride the trolley car of skepticism concerning the goods that God would know so as to undercut the evidential argument from evil. But once on that trolley car it may not be easy to prevent that skepticism from also undercutting any reasons they may suppose they have for thinking that God will provide them and the worshipful faithful with life everlasting in his presence. William Rowe

Unless you're one of those Easter-bunny vitalists who believes that personality results from some unquantifiable divine spark, there's really no alternative to the mechanistic view of human nature. Peter Watts

The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. E.O. Wilson

Creating humans who could understand the contrast between good and evil without subjecting them to eons of horrible suffering would be an utterly inconsequential matter for an omnipotent being. MM

The second commandment is "Thou shall not construct any graven images." Is this really the pinnacle of what we can achieve morally? The second most important moral principle for all the generations of humanity? It would be so easy to improve upon the 10 Commandments. How about "Try not to deep fry all of your food"? Sam Harris

Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody--not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms--had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would think--though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one--that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great

We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true--that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great

If atheism is a religion, then not playing chess is a hobby.

"Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything--anything--be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in." Sam Harris, The End of Faith, 36.

"Only a tiny fraction of corpsesfossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water." Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 127.

One cannot take, "believing in X gives me hope, makes me moral, or gives me comfort," to be a reason for believing X. It might make me moral if I believe that I will be shot the moment I do something immoral, but that doesn't make it possible for me to believe it, or to take its effects on me as reasons for thinking it is true. Matt McCormick

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Top Ten Myths about Belief in God

1. Myth: Without God, life has no meaning.

There are 1.2 billion Chinese who have no predominant religion, and 1 billion people in India who are predominantly Hindu. And 65% of Japan's 127 million people claim to be non-believers. It is laughable to suggest that none of these billions of people are leading meaningful lives.

2. Myth: Prayer works.

Numerous studies have now shown that remote, blind, inter-cessionary prayer has no effect whatsoever of the health or well-being of subject's health, psychological states, or longevity. Furthermore, we have no evidence to support the view that people who wish fervently in their heads for things that they want get those things at any higher rate than people who do not.

3. Myth: Atheists are less decent, less moral, and overall worse people than believers.

There are hundreds of millions of non-believers on the planet living normal, decent, moral lives. They love their children, care about others, obey laws, and try to keep from doing harm to others just like everyone else. In fact, in predominately non-believing countries such as in northern Europe, measures of societal health such as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, per capita income, education, homicide, suicide, gender equality, and political coercion are better than they are in believing societies.

4. Myth: Belief in God is compatible with the descriptions, explanations and products of science.

In the past, every supernatural or paranormal explanation of phenomena that humans believed turned out to be mistaken; science has always found a physical explanation that revealed that the supernatural view was a myth. Modern organisms evolved from lower life forms, they weren't created 6,000 years ago in the finished state. Fever is not caused by demon possession. Bad weather is not the wrath of angry gods. Miracle claims have turned out to be mistakes, frauds, or deceptions. So we have every reason to conclude that science will continue to undermine the superstitious worldview of religion.

5. Myth: We have immortal souls that survive the death of the body.

We have mountains of evidence that makes it clear that our consciousness, our beliefs, our desires, our thoughts all depend upon the proper functioning of our brains our nervous systems to exist. So when the brain dies, all of these things that we identify with the soul also cease to exist. Despite the fact that billions of people have lived and died on this planet, we do not have a single credible case of someone's soul, or consciousness, or personality continuing to exist despite the demise of their bodies. Allegations of spirit chandlers, psychics, ghost stories, and communications with the dead have all turned out to be frauds, deceptions, mistakes, and lies.

6. Myth: If there is no God, everything is permitted. Only belief in God makes people moral.

Consider the billions of people in China, India, and Japan above. If this claim was true, none of them would be decent moral people. So Ghandi, the Buddha, and Confucius, to name only a few were not moral people on this view, not to mention these other famous atheists: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Elizabeth Cady-Stanton, John Stuart Mill, Galileo, George Bernard Shaw, Gloria Steinam, James Madison, John Adams, and so on.

7. Myth: Believing in God is never a root cause of significant evil.

The counter examples of cases where it was someone's belief in God that was the direct justification for their perpetrated horrendous evils on humankind are too numerous to mention.

8. Myth: The existence of God would explain the origins of the universe and humanity.

All of the questions that allegedly plague non-God attempts to explain our origins--why are we here, where are we going, what is the point of it all, why is the universe here--still apply to the faux explanation of God. The suggestion that God created everything does not make it any clearer to us where it all came from, how he created it, why he created it, where it isall going. In fact, it raises even more difficult mysteries: how did God, operating outside the confines of space, time, and natural law "create" or "build" a universe that has physical laws? We have no precedent and maybe no hope of answering or understanding such a possibility. What does it mean to say that some disembodied, spiritual being who knows everything and has all power, "loves" us, or has thoughts, or goals, or plans? How could such a being have any sort of personal relationship with beings like us?

9. Myth: Even if it isn't true, there's no harm in my believing in God anyway.

People's religious views inform their voting, how they raise their children, what they think is moral and immoral, what laws and legislation they pass, who they are friends and enemies with, what companies they invest in, where they donate to charities, who they approve and disapprove of, who they are willing to kill or tolerate, what crimes they are willing to commit, and which wars they are willing to fight. How could any reasonable person think that religious beliefs are insignificant.

10: Myth: There is a God.

Common Criticisms of Atheism (and Why They’re Mistaken)

1. You can’t prove atheism.You can never prove a negative, so atheism requires as much faith as religion.

Atheists are frequently accosted with this accusation, suggesting that in order for non-belief to be reasonable, it must be founded on deductively certain grounds. Many atheists within the deductive atheology tradition have presented just those sorts of arguments, but those arguments are often ignored. But more importantly, the critic has invoked a standard of justification that almost none of our beliefs meet. If we demand that beliefs are not justified unless we have deductive proof, then all of us will have to throw out the vast majority of things we currently believe—oxygen exists, the Earth orbits the Sun, viruses cause disease, the 2008 summer Olympics were in China, and so on. The believer has invoked one set of abnormally stringent standards for the atheist while helping himself to countless beliefs of his own that cannot satisfy those standards. Deductive certainty is not required to draw a reasonable conclusion that a claim is true.

As for requiring faith, is the objection that no matter what, all positions require faith?Would that imply that one is free to just adopt any view they like?Religiousness and non-belief are on the same footing?(they aren’t).If so, then the believer can hardly criticize the non-believer for not believing. Is the objection that one should never believe anything on the basis of faith?Faith is a bad thing?That would be a surprising position for the believer to take, and, ironically, the atheist is in complete agreement.

2. The evidence shows that we should believe.

If in fact there is sufficient evidence to indicate that God exists, then a reasonable person should believe it. Surprisingly, very few people pursue this line as a criticism of atheism. But recently, modern versions of the design and cosmological arguments have been presented by believers that require serious consideration. Many atheists cite a range of reasons why they do not believe that these arguments are successful. If an atheist has reflected carefully on the best evidence presented for God’s existence and finds that evidence insufficient, then it’s implausible to fault them for irrationality, epistemic irresponsibility, or for being obviously mistaken.Given that atheists are so widely criticized, and that religious belief is so common and encouraged uncritically, the chances are good that any given atheist has reflected more carefully about the evidence.

3. You should have faith.

Appeals to faith also should not be construed as having prescriptive force the way appeals to evidence or arguments do. The general view is that when a person grasps that an argument is sound, that imposes an epistemic obligation of sorts on her to accept the conclusion. One person’s faith that God exists does not have this sort of inter-subjective implication. Failing to believe what is clearly supported by the evidence is ordinarily irrational. Failure to have faith that some claim is true is not similarly culpable. At the very least, having faith, where that means believing despite a lack of evidence or despite contrary evidence is highly suspect. Having faith is the questionable practice, not failing to have it.

4. Atheism is bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing.

These accusations have been dealt with countless times. But let’s suppose that they are correct. Would they be reasons to reject the truth of atheism? They might be unpleasant affects, but having negative emotions about a claim doesn’t provide us with any evidence that it is false. Imagine upon hearing news about the Americans dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki someone steadfastly refused to believe it because it was bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing. Suppose we refused to believe that there is an AIDS epidemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people in Africa on the same grounds.

5.Atheism is bad for you.Some studies in recent years have suggested that people who regularly attend church, pray, and participate in religious activities are happier, live longer, have better health, and less depression.

First, these results and the methodologies that produced them have been thoroughly criticized by experts in the field.Second, it would be foolish to conclude that even if these claims about quality of life were true, that somehow shows that there is theism is correct and atheism is mistaken.What would follow, perhaps, is that participating in social events like those in religious practices are good for you, nothing more.There are a number of obvious natural explanations.Third, it is difficult to know the direction of the causal arrow in these cases.Does being religious result in these positive effects, or are people who are happier, healthier, and not depressed more inclined to participate in religions for some other reasons?Fourth, in a number of studies atheistic societies like those in northern Europe scored higher on a wide range of society health measures than religious societies.

Given that atheists make up a tiny proportion of the world’s population, and that religious governments and ideals have held sway globally for thousands of years, believers will certainly lose in a contest over “who has done more harm,” or “which ideology has caused more human suffering.”It has not been atheism because atheists have been widely persecuted, tortured, and killed for centuries nearly to the point of extinction.

Sam Harris has argued that the problem with these regimes has been that they became too much like religions.“Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag, and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”

7.Atheists are harsh, intolerant, and hateful of religion.

Sam Harris has advocated something he calls “conversational intolerance.”For too long, a confusion about religious tolerance has led people to look the other way and say nothing while people with dangerous religious agendas have undermined science, the public good, and the progress of the human race.There is no doubt that people are entitled to read what they choose, write and speak freely, and pursue the religions of their choice.But that entitlement does not guarantee that the rest of us must remain silent or not verbally criticize or object to their ideas and their practices, especially when they affect all of us.Religious beliefs have a direct affect on who a person votes for, what wars they fight, who they elect to the school board, what laws they pass, who they drop bombs on, what research they fund (and don’t), which social programs they fund (and don’t), and a long list of other vital, public matters.Atheists are under no obligation to remain silent about those beliefs and practices that urgently need to be brought into the light and reasonably evaluated.

Real respect for humanity will not be found by indulging your neighbor’s foolishness, or overlooking dangerous mistakes.Real respect is found in disagreement.The most important thing we can do for each other is disagree vigorously and thoughtfully so that we can all get closer to the truth.

8.Science is as much a religious ideology as religion is.

At their cores, religions and science have a profound difference.The essence of religion is sustaining belief in the face of doubts, obeying authority, and conforming to a fixed set of doctrines.By contrast, the most important discovery that humans have ever made is the scientific method.The essence of that method is diametrically opposed to religious ideals:actively seek out disconfirming evidence.The cardinal virtues of the scientific approach are to doubt, analyze, critique, be skeptical, and always be prepared to draw a different conclusion if the evidence demands it.